


In Your Skin, in Your Hair; I'm Tangled Up

by chupacabruh



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom
Genre: Angst?, Dancing, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, benry and gordon r both autistic, breakdowns, gonna have. multiple chapters and. 60 ppl in a server throwing fraaags n shit, gordon's also got adhd. king, lmk if i should tag anything else ??, look man i'm bad at tagging it's just a shitty fic, not-a-game AU, they have to have a Talk at some point, uhhhhhhhhhhh idk how else to tag this as. gayass?, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. i'll add more if needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chupacabruh/pseuds/chupacabruh
Summary: Gordon decides it is somehow his job to teach Benry how to dance despite a plethora of logic that goes against this thought. cringeas a note before you read: this is still being written! yes i haven't updated it in a while, but i haven't given up on it or anything! the problem is i don't have a lot of time for writing, and i sorta inadvertently decided that i wanted to add a chapter or two in between the chapters i already had. the rest of the fic is finished (just needs some editing) but now i'm wanting to add more and change some stuff, which is why it's taking a while. i do plan on finishing it!! thank you !
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Benry/Gordon Freeman, Frenrey - Relationship
Comments: 28
Kudos: 140





	1. When you twist and you turn, teach me to run

Gordon hates Benry. He definitely doesn’t want to have to spend more one-on-one time with the guy, but no one else is going to do this, and Benry’s certainly not going to do it if left to his own devices. So, unfortunately, this is Gordon’s job now.  
At least, that’s what he’s telling himself. He ignores the fact that technically, Benry could just sit at a table and stay out of everyone’s way, and that he would in fact probably prefer to do that anyway. Benry could, for all intents and purposes, simply _not_ dance at Bubby and Coomer’s upcoming wedding. Who the hell was the guy supposed to even dance with, himself?  
Gordon fiddles with the bluetooth speaker, pointedly not thinking about that and instead considering what song he should put on in the background. He wants something slow, obviously – it’s slow dancing, after all – but he’s afraid of it sounding a bit too… on the romantic side of things? If he puts on something that sounds too gushy, Benry will definitely tease him about it and make some sort of snide comment about how gay Gordon must be for him, even though he definitely isn’t.  
Yuck.  
As he’s sifting through his playlists, Benry stands awkwardly in the middle of Gordon’s apartment, shifting in discomfort. He eyes the undecorated walls, the overflowing toy chest in the corner, the shelf lined with video games that sits beside the television. Gordon’s apartment is very sparsely decorated everywhere but Joshua’s room, though the kid isn’t currently here. Benry’s been in here before, but it always weirds him out how blank everything is when Gordon is such a dork. You’d think he’d have some posters or something, but there’s nothing. It’s just clean and clear, and the only signs of life are from Joshua and a few scattered coffee mugs that Gordon hasn’t picked up yet.  
“Man, why do I even have to do this, anyway?” Benry asks, kicking aside a small dinosaur toy so that it lands under the coffee table and isn’t just sitting in the middle of the rug. “Can’t I just pull out the fuckin’ uhhhh, Club Penguin dance? That’d be epic.”  
“No,” Gordon replies, turning back to him as he finally picks a song that he decides is neutral enough. “Now shut up and come here.”  
Benry grumbles and makes his way across the room, stopping in front of the taller man and looking up at him. He is unflinching in his very obvious look-over, eyeing Gordon’s form. He knows it makes Gordon feel self conscious, and Benry thinks that’s funny.  
“Your shirt sucks, dude.” He says, admiring the broadness of Gordon’s chest and shoulders.  
“Oh, like you can talk.”  
“My mountain dew shirt rocks, bro. Your button-up sucks and is cringe. You look like a dad.”  
“I _am_ a dad.”  
“You look like a gay dad.”  
“I AM a–” Gordon puffs in annoyance. “Will you just shut up and take my hands?”  
Benry’s about to make a stupid joke about how gay it is that Gordon wants to hold his hands so badly, but his mouth clacks shut and his words freeze over as Gordon grabs them himself. Gordon’s hands are smaller than you’d expect for a man of his size – kinda dainty, honestly, if Benry had to choose a word that wasn’t ‘babyhands’. He likes to call him Babyhands Feetman sometimes. Gordon hates it, and that’s hilarious. So, despite the fact that Benry is a generally smaller dude than Gordon, his hands are bigger than his, and there is nothing Benry is more aware of at the moment than that fact. Gordon’s hands fit perfectly in his own. Gordon’s hands are warm. Gordon’s hands are soft.  
Haha, they’re so small. Cringe. Why is Benry so warm?  
“Dude,” Gordon says, jolting Benry out of his thoughts. “Stop staring and listen. I’m going to lead, I guess, but eventually when you’ve got it down we can switch. Probably not tonight or anything, but. Sound good?”  
Benry opens his mouth to reply, but he can feel his sweetvoice rising up and panics a little, even though he knows Gordon can’t read it like Tommy can. He clamps his teeth back down and nods, swallowing hard.  
“Okay, so first thing’s first: You need to not step on my feet. Please, for the love of God, keep that in mind. Your combat boots are way too heavy to be trampling all over me.”  
Benry grins, his teeth glinting in the light, and opens his mouth – this time without issue – to speak.  
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Gordon growls. “No weird feet jokes, man. I’ll steal your copy of Heavenly Sword and scratch the fuck out of it, I swear to God.”  
Benry chuckles, but ultimately decides not to continue. He can’t risk that. Just the fact that Gordon knew exactly what he was going to say is satisfying enough, for the time being.  
Gordon starts to go over the first few steps of this slow-dancing thing, and Benry is honestly not hating it as much as he thought he would when the idea was originally proposed to him. He’s sort of glad that Gordon insisted, though he doesn’t really understand why Gordon cared so fuckin’ much. Benry follows his steps carefully and mindfully, watching the way Gordon moves and doing his best to copy him. It’s a little hard at first – the steps aren’t complicated at all, but Benry is so distracted by Gordon’s everything that it’s a bit hard to pay full attention, even when he’s trying. He gets it, though, and when Gordon decides he’s ready they move to some of the less basic steps. Benry is worse at this part, if only because when Gordon spins him out and then back into his arms, he is now way, way closer to the man. Gordon is large, his skin radiating heat, and Benry almost feels enveloped in him. He can smell him, can feel Gordon’s breath against his skin as they move clumsily to Gordon’s direction. He trips a little and almost falls, and Gordon catches him with ease. Benry stares up at him, barely reacting.  
“You okay, man?”  
“Huh? Wha?”  
Gordon sighs and stands straight again, bringing Benry up with him. “You’ve been doin’ pretty good ‘til that, honestly. You’ve gotta work on paying more attention to where I’m going, though. Dances are all about uh, like, communication? Kinda? And that includes nonverbal communication. So you’ve gotta stop thinking about fuckin’ uhh, Bugs Life for the Playstation or whatever.”  
“I was thinking about Littlest Pet Shop for the Wii, actually,” Benry corrects, and he smiles when Gordon laughs at his dumb little joke. “How do you– How do you even know how to do this, anyway? You uh, you love dancing? Cringe-ass nerd is a DDR fan? You go around doin’ uhhh, dance classes? Dancing With the Stars for the Playstation 2? Huh? Nerd?”  
Gordon laughs, shaking his head and ignoring half of the nonsense that just tumbled out of the guy’s mouth. “Nah, not really. I had to – my ex made me take her to her uh, friend’s wedding once, before we were broken up. I ended up lookin’ up like, tutorials, online, to try and – I hadn’t danced since like, uh, middle school, so I needed a refresher. They made us learn swing dancing and stuff in P.E, it’s the only reason I even knew any of it to begin with.”  
“They made you dance in middle school?”  
“Uh, yeah? Didn’t they make you?”  
“I uh, didn’t go to middle school.”  
“Right. You’re lucky, though. Middle school was hell,” Gordon laughs. “And the dancing lesson didn’t help me hate it any less. You never had to learn to dance for anything else?”  
“Nah, uh, especially nothing like this. Like, I’ve taught myself shitty meme dances, that’s about it. Fortnite and whatever, yaknow?”  
Gordon smiles. “You’re doing pretty well, then, for your first lesson.”  
Benry gives him a small smile in return. “Guess you’re not as fail of a teacher as I thought you’d be, Mr. Feetman. Wild.”  
Gordon rolls his eyes and goes back to teaching, watching Benry’s form and adjusting it as necessary. The short little bastard seems distracted, but maybe it’s just the fact that he’s a beginner. Either way, Gordon ends up looking at him a lot, and the whole thing just feels a little weird. It isn’t as if he’s never touched Benry before – Gordon is a pretty handsy guy, constantly touching people’s shoulders and faces and somehow seeing no issue with that – but now that their hands are intertwined and their bodies are close, it’s sort of hellish to be touching and looking at him as much as he is. He feels a familiar warmth snake into his chest, and it’s a warmth he has been fighting tooth and nail for a while now. This was a mistake.  
Yet, it doesn’t really feel like one. Right now, despite being nervous and uncomfortably sweaty (fuck, when did that start?), Gordon sort of feels like he’s in heaven. Swaying to the shitty music he’s put on and leading Benry as best as he can, he feels a lightness he isn’t used to feeling, especially after the events at Black Mesa. If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t think he’s felt like this even before then – close, maybe, when he and his ex were first together, but even that doesn’t match his current feelings. He’s used to a heavy weight in his very bones, and right now that feeling is absent. He feels… good.  
His thoughts are interrupted by sweetvoice orbs cascading into his face, and he jumps in surprise and stumbles backwards, flailing like a cartoon and landing on his ass. Benry covers his mouth, staring down at Gordon with wide eyes. He doesn’t even laugh, which surprises Gordon more than the sweetvoice itself did.  
“Jesus Christ, dude, what the hell.” Gordon mutters as he gets back up.  
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.” Benry says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweats.  
“It’s cool, just. Maybe try not to kill me while I’m teaching you shit,” Gordon speaks without thinking, then snorts. “Though, I guess that’s kind of hard for you.”  
Benry looks at the floor. He doesn’t feel very warm anymore, suddenly.  
The atmosphere immediately changes, and both of them can sense it. Whatever softness was there a second ago has been replaced by an icy reminder of the things Benry has done.  
“That’s uh, fine though. Maybe we should stop for tonight, anyway,” Gordon says, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to act casual. “You got a lot of it down. Not that it’s that hard, but. We can do the rest another night, get some practice in then.”  
Benry nods and turns to leave, making a beeline for the couch and grabbing the bag he’d brought with him off of it. “I’m uh, gonna go home then. Got some Call of Duty to play.”  
“Yeah.”  
He leaves, and Gordon stands in the middle of his living room, regretting what he said but finding Benry deserving of whatever possible twinge of guilt Gordon may have instilled in him. The music still playing in the background quickly gets on his nerves, anger prickling across his skin.

He shuts it off and is consumed by the quiet.


	2. I grab and hold on tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is very gordon-introspective-heavy, like it's mostly just. his thoughts and stuff  
> he has a breakdown! if you wanna avoid that, it starts at 'What is wrong with him? His breath quickens and he grabs at his ponytail,' and ends at 'and waits for the aftershock of his panic to subside.'

Gordon does not sleep well that night. Not that he has since the Black Mesa incident, really, but at least the sleeping pills he got prescribed recently have been knocking him out a lot faster than usual. Last night, however, though he could feel them trying to work, his body and brain didn’t cooperate. He didn’t fall asleep until sometime in the early morning, and then he woke up screaming not an hour later.  
Now, he sits in a chair on his tiny, cramped balcony, sipping at his fifth cup of coffee. Coffee has a difficult time effecting him, which unfortunately means he needs to drink a lot of it before anything seems to happen. Even now, he’s only just beginning to feel a little less tired.  
God, what’s wrong with him?  
He rubs his prosthetic over his eyes, hating the way it feels. His prosthetic is incredibly high tech – more high tech than any he’d ever seen, actually – to the point where he originally thought it was his real arm when he’d first seen it after finally shedding the HEV suit. It looks so realistic, and the skin is remarkably lifelike. But this hand doesn’t feel the same; It feels sort of like when your hand has been asleep for far too long, and at first you can’t feel it anymore. Needly, when it’s touching something else. The fact that the limb can feel anything at all is nothing short of amazing to Gordon, but he hates the feeling above all else regardless. It fills him with static whenever he brushes his fake hand against something, and while Gordon can usually handle it, he has a much harder time with it when he’s upset. The faraway feeling of needles and touch overwhelms him, overstimulating his brain in the worst ways. It makes him want to claw at himself and bite at it or throw it across the room, anything to make it feel right, even though it won’t. He hates the feeling so, so much. And whose fault is it that he has to deal with it in the first place?  
He sighs. Technically, it’s not just Benry’s. He did forgive Bubby, after all, though it was more out of necessity than anything. He’s generally okay with it now, but sometimes when he remembers the anger starts to stir again. He’s never really going to get over that feeling of betrayal, he thinks, even knowing the reasons behind what happened now. It still stings, and it’s worse with Benry considering all the other shit he did, too. When he remembers the way the guard growled in excitement when the ambush started – the “do your job right and he gonna be _dead_ soon” that slithered out of his lips – Gordon can’t help but feel his stomach churn. Tears prick at his eyes and he slams back the rest of his coffee, getting up to get more. Keep yourself busy, Gordon.  
He’s shaking as he pours more coffee into his mug (a white cup that has ‘Who needs healing potions when you have coffee?’ printed on it) and sighs. None of this is fair. The fact that he has to be all buddy buddy with that monster, the fact that he’s expected to just forgive and forget, the fact that all of his friends don’t seem to understand and act like he’s overreacting whenever he tries to bring it up. He’s always met with a chorus of criticism (“Now, Gordon, you shouldn’t stoop to holding grudges!” Coomer loves to say.) and he feels like no one hears him when he talks. Makes him think maybe he should just stop talking, maybe he should just never talk again. So he has; he hasn’t brought it up in ages. They all seem happier for it. His emotions are a burden on others, and they always have been.  
That doesn’t make it feel any fairer, though he may be used to it by this point in his life. The worst of it all right now, though, is probably the fact that until he really starts to think about it, Gordon… likes being around Benry. He did in Black Mesa a lot of the time, too, disgustingly. Benry’s the weirdest fucking guy he’s ever met with a sense of humor that is nigh incomprehensible. Every sentence out of that guy’s mouth is some of the most incoherent nonsense he’s ever heard, and it strikes Gordon’s funny bone without mercy, leaving him cackling. It had him laughing hard even during some of the most horrible times in Black Mesa. It had been a highly welcome distraction, even if he’d pretended at the time that it wasn’t. Even Benry’s more annoying qualities had been weirdly helpful, back then.  
Gordon isn’t bored when Benry is around, and since boredom is probably the most hellish emotion, he finds it… nice. Even the arguing is funny a lot of the time.  
That warmth he’s been fighting worms its way into his chest as he sits back on the balcony. It’s a weird mix of emotion – something light bubbling up in his chest, while his stomach churns and his whole body tingles uncomfortably with anxiety. Half of it is whatever he feels when Benry smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his teeth a mix of normal and oddly inhuman, stretched across his face a little too wide. The other half is what Gordon feels at night, when he’s alone and the nightmares and anxiety finally have purchase and overtake him.  
What _is_ wrong with him? His breath quickens and he grabs at his ponytail, twisting the hair with his fingers and pulling his hand over it. He winces at the feeling as he realizes he’s using his right arm and switches hands, playing with his hair as his prosthetic settles on the warm mug in front of him. The anxious skittering in his body starts to consume him, and Gordon faintly wonders if he’s dying. He tries to concentrate himself on the feeling of the coffee burning beneath his skin, but the feeling is so far away from what it should be that it only serves to sever him further from himself. He rocks in his chair, staring off into space at nothing, twisting his ponytail in his fingers and breaking some of the strands.  
Distract yourself, Gordon. You’re okay. It’s fine. None of this matters, anyway.  
He doesn’t succeed right away. It consumes him, feeling like fire ants are marching all over his skin, desperately clutching at his hair as he rocks. Tears spill down his cheeks, choked sobs and struggling breaths escaping his mouth with all the grace of a drunk man falling out of a car. He brings his knees to his chest, feet settled precariously on the edge of the chair, and runs both hands through his hair, clawing at his scalp and roughly pulling at his curls. The needles in his right hand make it worse, and he lets out a growl of frustration and practically rips it off, tossing it to the floor. He rocks, and he cries, and when the feeling of movement and the twirling of his hair finally begin to calm him down, he lets out a shaky breath and picks up his arm.   
Putting it back on, he takes a sip of his coffee. It’s cold now, but he drinks it anyway, and waits for the aftershock of his panic to subside.

Hours later, tired but feeling way better, he texts Benry asking if he wants to come down tonight. Originally he had wanted to wait a couple days to let the tension sort of fade out, but now that he isn’t feeling so bad he finds he’s ready for Benry’s presence. He wants to dance again. It was nice, and if the loose and light feeling he’d felt before was any indication, it may calm him down further.  
Benry texts back asking if he’s sure, a surprising display of an attempt to be considerate, then agrees when Gordon answers in the affirmative. Not even an hour later Benry and Gordon are hand in hand again, swaying to music, and Gordon feels his anxiety leeching out of him. It feels weird, to feel so comfortable with a creature that made him feel dread for so long. It’s nice, though, and he’s too tired from his breakdown to fight how he feels. His worries from last night and this morning drift off into the air, up and away, clipping through his ceiling in the same manner that Benry would if he wanted to freak Gordon out. Gordon smiles at the thought, looking down at Benry with a warmth in his expression that Benry isn’t sure he’s seen before.

Benry is overwhelmed by it. Sweetvoice drips from his mouth, floating up and surrounding Gordon. The voice is nearly in tune with the music, adding something to the atmosphere that Benry can’t identify. Gordon doesn’t even swat the little lights away, just watching as he spins Benry around. Benry tries to listen as Gordon instructs him to adjust his pose, voice soft and tinged with… _something_ , incredibly conscious of how Gordon’s warmth feels under his palm. Benry can’t think about anything but Gordon, even as he strains to pay attention to not fucking up his dance steps. It’s making it harder than it should be. Even Gordon seems distracted, barely instructing him anymore and not branching into new movements. They move slowly together in a repetitive but calming motion. They’re as close as they were last night, before things got messed up. Benry catches himself staring up into Gordon’s eyes and averts his gaze, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. He knows Gordon has a bit of a thing with eye contact – so does Benry, though the opposite way. He makes way too much of it, and he knows it tends to make Gordon uncomfortable. His gaze travels around Gordon’s face, not wanting to look away but wanting to avoid the eye issue, and ends up landing on his mouth.  
It looks soft, just like the rest of him.  
Benry can feel his skin heat up, and he’s sure Gordon has noticed. He gets defensive before anything is even said.  
“You look like shit,” Benry mutters, ruining whatever moment they were having. “You didn’t sleep good, huh?”  
Gordon laughs, not taking offense. “Yeah, nah. Pills didn’t really uh, help last night, unfortunately.”  
“I could, uh–” Benry stammers. “I could help with that, ya know.”  
“Huh?”  
“My uh, sweetvoice. I can make you go to sleep. Get ya some real z’s. Skyrim timeskip shit.”  
“Oh. Huh. That might be nice, actually.”  
“Yeah, maybe we could uh, haha, have a boys night. I could stay over. We could play games together,” Benry starts rambling. “And chill and eat snacks and maybe you could watch me play some Heavenly Sword, and then I can put you to bed and tuck you in like the lil baby that you are. Baby Feetman naptime.”  
Gordon smiles. “Sounds good.”  
Benry feels weird, like his body is buzzing with electricity. “Good, that’s a good. Cool. Tonight?”  
“Sure.”  
Benry smiles, staring into Gordon’s eyes.  
For once, Gordon doesn’t look away immediately.  
“Wanna kiss?” Benry blurts.  
For once, Gordon just smiles and chuckles lightly.

He doesn’t even say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo gordon's whole arm thing is me trying to balance between them replacing his arm and me wishing they had not replaced his arm  
> figure to keep it close to canon it's just a very ... high tech thing. i hope it uhhhhhhhh makes sense at all ?? 
> 
> chapter title is still lyrics from Hold On by flor, which they always will be but out of order bc i wanna just pick and choose what ones fit the chapters most :')

**Author's Note:**

> WELP thats chapter one i basically have this whole thing written out already (except maybe an extra chapter ??? we'll see) but i need to edit it all and like, rewrite it to be not so bad. so ya know. idk how long that'll take ?? i've got that sweet adhd so we just dont know  
> i'm not much of a writer but! hopefully this is. good
> 
> this was originally just going to be a sweet lil oneshot of them dancing but then my brain was like 'inject bullshit' so now it's 9k+ words long :')
> 
> title + chapter titles r lyrics from the song Hold On by Flor, which i've been listening to on repeat bc it fills me w frenrey thoughts


End file.
